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Protesters attend a pro-democracy rally next to the Hong Kong government complex on Sunday, 2014. China on Sunday announced rules giving it control over who can stand in Hong Kong’s next leadership election, triggering tears and fury in the city where democracy activists vowed to stage a mass sit-in. PHOTO: AFP / ALEX OGLE

Hong Kong: Democracy activists in Hong Kong vowed on Sunday to embark on an "era of civil disobedience" including mass sit-ins after China announced rules giving it control over candidates in the city's next leadership election.

The standing committee of the National People's Congress (NPC), China's rubber-stamp parliament, decided that the next chief executive will be elected by popular vote in 2017, but candidates must each be backed by more than half the members of a 1,200-strong "broadly representative nominating committee".

Democracy advocates in the semi-autonomous city say this means Beijing will be able to ensure a sympathetic slate of candidates and exclude opponents.

"This is one person, one vote, but there is no choice. They have that in North Korea but you can't call it democracy," Democratic Party chairwoman Emily Lau said.

The pro-democracy group Occupy Central said it would go ahead with its threat to take over the city's Central financial district in protest, at an unspecified date.

Hundreds rallied in a park outside the city's legislature late Sunday chanting "No to fake democracy!" and blowing vuvuzelas.

"A new chapter is unfolding in Hong Kong. It is an era of civil disobedience," Benny Tai, a co-founder of Occupy, told supporters in front of a stage decked with two large Chinese characters that spelt the word "Disobedience".

"I am very sad," Henry Chung, a 37-year-old scriptwriter, said. "We have waited so many years. But now we have nothing."

'Love the Party' Public discontent in the former British colony handed back to China in 1997 is at its highest for years over perceived interference by Beijing, with the election method for the chief executive a touchstone issue.

The text of the NPC decision, released by the official news agency Xinhua, said universal suffrage must have "institutional safeguards" to take into account "the actual need to maintain long-term prosperity and stability of Hong Kong".

The nominating committee will pick two to three candidates, it added. NPC official Li Fei dismissed the activists' demands, adding that Hong Kong's leader must be loyal to China's ruling Communist Party.

"The Hong Kong leader must be a person who loves the country and the Party," he said. Leung Chun-ying, the city's current chief executive who was picked by a pro-Beijing committee, hailed the NPC's decision as a "major step forward in the development of Hong Kong's society".

"If we are willing, the majority of Hong Kong people, and that is some five million people eligible to vote, will no longer be bystanders in the next election," he told reporters. But Beijing's plan to vet candidates caused dismay among democracy advocates.